Fitness

So somewhere between October of last year and March, maybe April of this year I went from being a couch potato to this crazy person who got up at 4:30am to go workout, then back to couch potato… well maybe not actually a couch potato but something similar… lazy, lump always on her laptop probably sums it up better.

Last year I put on a significant amount of weight I would tell you the number if I knew it but I don’t, so I won’t.

I just know dresses and skirts started to be my everyday attire because the thought of trying to squeeze into my jeans was much too much to even think about let alone do. So sometime maybe the middle of last year my good friend Groupon had a deal for a local bootcamp, I had been really wanting to get back into a workout routine and figured group exercise might be it for me so I bought it. I bought the Groupon for this bootcamp and decided that I would start the next camp session after I came home from Italy; so October.

I loved slash hated it I loved working out and getting my body moving but getting up t 4:30 am sucked and going to bed early sucked even more. I did bootcamp for awhile, then things with my migraines started getting worse and then I hurt my achilles tendon, as if all the physical things weren’t enough I started to get really frustrated with the bootcamp and the ethics and dynamics of it (I won’t even go there). So I stopped going to bootcamp and started going to the gym. Then I stopped going to the gym regularly even, then I just stopped. I got back into my ways of non-movement and bad eating and I gained about 14 pounds.

I am writing this because awhile back I read a blog post (which for reference sake I cannot find right now) about a girl who blogged her weight loss journey and it helped to keep her accountable. I am hoping that writing this will help to keep me in check. I promise to not be that annoying person who only talks about losing weight and eating salads. I don’t feel like what I am doing is any sort of journey, but maybe somewhere along the line I will help to inspire or someone will help me to be inspired.

I am not yet prepared (mostly mentally) to put a number out there for the world to read and for the internet to keep forever but I can promise you that losing and gaining weight is something that I have struggled with for a good portion of my adult life. I yo-yo like no other; up, down, up down.. it is a vicious cycle. Right now I am up. And right now is the time I feel like I need to do something about it. June is halfway through the year, I tried and failed the first half of the year, why not come back and follow through with the things that I started.

Everyone falls off the wagon, but what you do after that is what matters; will you get back on or stay off?

I am choosing to get back on. I started working out again last week; I also have a workout buddy which makes working out early much easier. I find that working out in a group or with someone else makes the workouts easier to do and it helps to push me when I don’t want to keep going. I invested some money into workout books that help to make muscles and strength make more sense. The one that I just finished reading, is “A Woman’s Guide to Muscle and Strength” by Irene Lewis-McCormick. This book is amazing, she breaks down how strength training works for a female’s body, myths on using weights, using proper form, and there are even several different workout programs that you can follow. Since I have been out of my gym routine for a while I am using the beginner workouts. I followed the program 5 days last week; strength and cardio; it was pretty much amazing, I still feel that great sore feeling after you’ve worked your body. One thing I wish that this book did discuss is nutrition, if it is one place that I fall short it is in nourishing my body.

I can gladly eat the same meals a hundred times over as long as no one around me has anything that might be remotely tempting. I am a huge sucker for crunchy things; chips mostly. I never was a soda drinker until Marlboro Man, which is weird because he always drinks diet and I like the real thing; Coke not Pepsi and NEVER diet. I love ice cream, I am not proud to admit this but I can eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in a single sitting, ice cream is my happy place. I need to find a book that discusses nutrition on a level that I can comprehend and that will teach me the proper way to eat. If you know of a book that does this please let me know, I will be forever grateful.

So I guess that is it for now, I am not sure that I really said much of anything; maybe this was a post for myself? Like I said to keep me accountable for me; at some point I will put that number down which will make me even more accountable.. soon.

6/9/14

Warrior Dash was this past Saturday and I am not sure how to even sum it up except to say that it was the most amazing kick in the ass I have experience in such a long time! I was SUPER nervous about doing this race slash obstacle course for a couple of reasons: I am not that much of a runner like I used to be, this course was coined “hilly” which it was. I had never done an obstacle type race before and I had no idea what to expect. I mean sure the website shows you the obstacles you might face but that is just a picture, it really doesn’t compare with being face to face with a giant mud slide. I also wasn’t sure how the atmosphere would be, some races I’ve been to are super competitive and people are kind of full of themselves.. not this one.

Warrior Dash exceeded my expectations on all accounts. I was super nervous while waiting in the gates to start but once we were set free I realized that I didn’t need to be nervous people were super friendly and also very helpful and encouraging. There was one obstacle I was having a heck of a time with and one guy finished it and waited at the end to high five me once I had finished; nice strangers.. who knew that they existed. The competitive wave was the first wave to go so each wave after felt a little more relaxed but at the same time super charged, people were there to have some good, muddy fun.

I did however expect this run to be a little more messy during the entire thing but it turns out the most muddy part didn’t come until the end when you came face to face with Goliath, an obstacle that you had to climb up and over only to have to slide down a water slide type slide with mud into a mud pit and then swim slash float your way through a mud pool that had looming barbed wire. At the end of the race I literally had mud in places mud shouldn’t be. The people putting on the race offered hoses for rinsing all of that mud off but trust me, it barely made a dent. Had I planned better I would’ve brought a towel to help clean myself off with.

I feel like I am all over the place now, so let me just say… Warrior Dash = AMAZING, and I can’t wait to do it again next year. And if I had planned better I would have brought a towel, a change of clothes, flip flops, extra water, plastic bags for my muddy clothes. The one thing I did plan ahead with was bringing trash bags for my car, I did not need all that mud in my car.

I also have to say that I am rather proud of myself for completing this race, my friend was not able to run it with me so essentially I went by myself, I did have the support of the girls from Bootcamp but I was not about to let the fact that I was running alone stop me. I might have been solo but no part of the race did I feel like I was alone because of the tons of other people that were running the race.

Oh and just an FYI days later and I still feel like someone beat the crap out of me and I have the battle scars, or bruises rather, to prove it.